Living Proof: The Art of Japanese Draftsmanship in the 19th Century

As strange as it seems to us in the West, Japanese artists in the nineteenth century did not view their own drawings as individual works of art. They were "thinking on paper" or creating visual aids for wood carvers and printers who would create the actual work of art: the woodblock print. But despite their creators' misgivings about the artistry, drawings by master woodblock printers such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Katsushika Hokusai are indeed works of art. Living Proof: The Art of Japanese Draftsmanship in the 19th Century, the new exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (3716 Washington Boulevard; www.pulitzerarts.org), collects more than 80 such "throwaway" drawings that capture the artists' work in their own hands, with corrections and alterations that demonstrate how they thought about and edited their projects "in camera." Living Proof is on display November 3 through March 3.